Thanks for letting me keep my opinion .. but what about freedom of speech?
You're telling me and others, particularly those of us who live in the States and watched TG US, we should feel ripped off when we
don't feel ripped off, and neither do a good chunk of the posters in this section, especially when you consider some of them ultimately found the first season of TG US
better than the last few episodes of the UK version! I don't appreciate that; I find it patronizing.
Sure, I suppose after answering these questions you can still say they are just regionalising it, but as an Australian, I can tell you that Top Gear Australia is no more relevant to me than Top Gear is and I am supported by my countrymen in the ratings the show has received. It speaks to me with no more regional resonance than a Coca-Cola commercial.
Fine; you don't like it. That's your perogative. But that doesn't automatically mean TG US sucks as well.
Which brings me back to my original plea. Top Gear has been very successful for BBC World. Their accountants have recognised this and sold the name on to a number of franchisees without really applying any quality control (Top Gear Australia being the oldest and best example of this).
I'm echoing racingfan1's question here: Why the hell did it take so long for the US -- the largest television market in the world! -- to get its own version? The earliest talk of a US version of TG was around 2008 (I think?); a year later, a pilot was filmed for NBC (one of our "Big Three"). It never came together, largely because their remake of
Knight Rider failed (NBC's rationale was if KR didn't work, who would want to see a programme that's all about cars?). A year after that, the History Channel picked up the rights to the US version.
The fucking History Channel! A basic cable channel over here, and the last place on earth one would expect to find a car programme, and one with very low viewing figures.
And in regards to the original, even though Discovery aired early episodes of TG UK in 2005, it wasn't until
three years later, after BBC America (a network with, I believe, far less viewership than Discovery does) picked it up,
six years after current TG premiered, that it saw a rise in popularity over here. And even though BBCA has aired the original recipe ever since, and even with a feature on
60 Minutes in the can, there are still LOADS of people that have no clue what TG even is. It only seems like there's a large US following because of the internets.
They are playing us for suckers and if you don't think this is all just a cynical money grab, answer me this. Why did BBC World sell the rights to Top Gear on to (big bucks commercial) channel 9 in Australia .. after (non-commercial publicly funded) SBS had done all the hard work and brought Top Gear to the publics attention?
Again, History Channel doesn't have high viewing figures over here, and TG was originally intended for NBC, who passed.
These foreign franchises could be OK TV. But I believe they will only achieve watch-ability when they lose the name Top Gear, stop trying to be Top Gear, and evolve a style and format that is comfortable to the presenters, writers, producers etc rather than follow a unique recipe they can never satisfactorily replicate.
I can't answer to TG Russia. But I'm damn sure both TG Australia and TG US have input from the UK crew. For example, Wilman was here when the NBC pilot was filmed; then Richard Porter acted as a consultant when US S1 was being filmed for History. Both versions have the blessing of the UK presenters (yes,
all of them, despite how you may interpret James's now-somewhat-infamous Telegraph column).
None of these regional versions are trying to take away from the original. Nor will they, ultimately. They're
supplements to the original, made explicitly for the audience within these countries (whether it catered to you personally is, in the grand scheme of things, irrelevant; I'm talking in-general here).